Five years is a long time in the MacBook world. Each generation of Apple's laptops usually come with new features and specs that are better than the MacBooks that preceded it, like faster processors and more memory. Yet even with these additions, the starting price of MacBooks don't tend to shift all that much from one year to the next.

But we no longer live in normal times. The costs of electronics continue to aggressively increase thanks to AI data centers eating up the supply chains for pivotal PC parts like memory, storage and GPUs. Apple itself was no longer able to absorb the effects of the components shortage and announced big price hikes for a wide range of products earlier this year, including its entire MacBook Pro line.

So it's worth keeping that context in mind when we look at the differences between buying a MacBook Pro in 2021 and buying one in 2026. Since they come in a variety of configurations that can significantly affect how much you pay for them, we'll just look at the prices for the entry-level laptops from each respective year.

In 2021, Apple was just getting started with its custom silicon after moving away from using AMD GPUs and Intel processors in its laptops. At the time, the company debuted a slightly chunkier MacBook Pro lineup that came equipped with the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips.

But due to inflation rates in the US, the spending power of $2,000 back in 2021 isn't the same as the spending power of $2,000 today.

Source link